Max Verstappen has been slammed by Damon Hill for exhibiting “weird” behaviour during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix over the weekend.
Verstappen finished second, behind his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez, at the Baku City Circuit on Sunday as his lead in the Formula One standings was cut to 13 points. That finish came after he dropped to P3 in Saturday’s sprint race following a collision with George Russell.
The Dutchman suffered damage to the side of his car and was furious with Russell, venting his anger over the team radio before calling him a “d***head” in front of the TV cameras. All in all, it was a disappointing weekend for Verstappen – and his behaviour was criticised by 1996 World Champion Hill.
“Max has been off-tune hasn’t he this week?” he said on Sky Sports. “He’s kind of done himself down a little bit by being down on the sprint and not having a good race in the sprint and all those things.
“I got the sense there’s something a bit out of sorts with Max at the moment. He’s talked about not wanting to race beyond 30 or whatever it is, weird stuff. Why is he talking about this now? He’s right in the middle of a championship and it’s a bit odd.”
Hill accused Verstappen of being “salty” and a “sore loser” after calling for the sprint race to be scrapped following the collision with Russell. The 62-year-old pundit took the side of Russell in the debate, saying it was a racing incident and he was within his rights to make an aggressive move.
“I think the real issue is that Max was beaten by his team-mate and championship rival, Sergio Perez, who has closed the gap to 13 points now,” Hill added.
Hill did later add some context to Verstappen’s spiky behaviour by highlighting the huge pressure the drivers are under. “I’m absolutely sure that Max is a perfectly polite and decent human being but when you get heated in a competitive situation it takes an awful lot of self-control not to let these things spill out,” he said.
“We’ve seen it before with [Esteban] Ocon, when he took issue with him after a race, having words and giving him a little bit of a shove to let him know how he felt about what they’d been doing out on the track – he’s fiery, it’s fair to say, when he’s just out of the car.”
Verstappen will have a chance to get back on track in Florida this weekend, with first practice taking place on May 5 at the Miami International Autodrome. He will be hoping to make it three first place finishes, following his successes at Bahrain and Melbourne.
